use HTML::Entities;

...

$html = encode_entities($string, '<>&"');

<xsl:template match="my_repeating_item">
<tr>
  <xsl:if test="position() mod 2 != 1">
    <xsl:attribute  name="style">background-color:#dddddd</xsl:attribute>
  </xsl:if>
  <xsl:apply-templates/>
</tr>
<xsl:template>

#!/usr/bin/perl

 use HTML::FromText;
 use strict;

 my $text = join '',<>;
 my $html = text2html($text, urls => 1, email => 1, bold=>1, paras => 1, allcaps => 1, tables => 1, bullets => 1, underline=>1);

print $html;

C-x ESC-1 ESC-| tohtml RET

function listToXml(){
	var vList = document.getElementById('phonetic');
        var vLen  = vList.childNodes.length;
	var vXml  = "<ul>";
        for(var i = 0; i < vLen - 1; i++){
	  if(vList.childNodes[i].innerHTML){
	    vXml = vXml + '<li>' + vList.childNodes[i].innerHTML + '</li>';
	  }
        }
	vXml = vXml + '</ul>';
	document.myform.listfield.value = vXml;
}

...

	<ul id="phonetic" class="sortable boxy" style="margin-left: 1em;">
		<li>alpha</li>
		<li>bravo</li>
		<li>charlie</li>
		<li>delta</li>
		<li>echo</li>
		<li>foxtrot</li>
        </ul>

<form name="myform">
<input type="text" name="listfield" value="" size="60">
<input type="button" value="submit2" name="submit2" onClick="listToXml()">
</form>